Changing the guard at the government-owned Alberta Investment Management Co. (AIMCo) cost the pension manager nearly $3.6-million in termination payments to five former top executives, including its departed chief executive officer.
The fund manager lost $2.1-billion on trading strategies linked to market volatility in the spring of 2020, when the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic rocked markets. AIMCo significantly underperformed peers that year.
AIMCo subsequently recruited a new team, starting with chair Mark Wiseman, former CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. After Mr. Wiseman arrived, AIMCo hired Evan Siddall, the former CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., as its new CEO.
“There’s nothing here that is not normal course under either employment law or contractual arrangements that people have,” Mr. Wiseman said in an interview Monday. “And those contracts are what one would expect to see in the public pension sector in Canada. This is pretty standard and it’s what you’d expect to see when you’re, frankly, in a change management scenario.”
Alberta pension manager AIMCo posts double-digit return
AIMCo manages $168-billion on behalf of 32 clients, including pension plans for provincial government employees and Alberta’s $19-billion Heritage Savings Trust Fund.
The plan manager said in its recent annual report for 2021 it paid $2.23-million in termination payments to former CEO Kevin Uebelein. Including salary and incentive-plan payments largely...
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